Deadly Aussie Toilets

I promised you a follow-up post to tell the rest of the stories of long last weekend. And here it is. :)
Last weekend, we went camping with Wayne and Kate and Ali. We stayed at a little campsite in the hills, where life is cooler and calmer and much more green than Brisbane. And at dawn and dusk, it's surprisingly more noisy than living in the city. You have to raise your voice to mighty near shouting in order to be heard over the gaggles of cockatoos. (I really don't know if Gaggle is the word for a massive and thunderous group of cockatoos, but there were hundereds of them, and they all had very important things to say. If we'd stayed there too many more days, I may even have forgotten how beautiful they were.)

Still, it's nice that even the noise of nature can be relaxing. We hadn't been out camping in over a year! And as Kate's pregnant with her 2nd bub, we may not be able to go together again for a while. So we enjoyed it. Ali couldn't get enough of crawling in the grass and chasing the little magpies that haunted our tents. Oh, and I should have got a photo of Wayne's sign. A huge cardboard cutout of the crocodile hunter -- holding up a sign over his head that says "This spot's a Ripper!" Wayne tied it to the front post of our kitchen tent. So everyone could see it when they drove by. He's a funny one, he is :)

So, are you wondering about the deadly toilets now? You should be. I write this to warn you, in case you ever go camping in Australia. And if you come from an American-speaking background, keep in mind that it's not the actual toilets themselves that are dangerous, but rather the toilet blocks -- the rooms the toilets are in. Those are called "the toilets." (because there are certainly no baths or showers in these toilet blocks.)

So, that's where I was going, just after dark. It was just a short walk from our campsite. I carried my flashlight, I watched the stars, I was not afraid of the dark. I walked into the ladies' block and shone my light around the back stall to have a look, before entering. I'm really glad I did. My flashlight revealed the first poisonous snake I've seen in Australia, that was not behind glass in a zoo. He was just a few feet away from me, and he was very much free. He was about a meter long, and his thin black body with bright yellow stripes was stretched out along the wall behind the toilet, slithering very slowly. And I stepped back to the door just as slowly.

Now I don't know a whole lot about Australian snakes, but I do know this much: 1) bright colours are bad. Not always, but as a rule of thumb -- the more beautiful the snake, the more likely it is to kill you. 2) Most snakes will stay away from you if they can. If they are scared and cornered...like in the back of a toilet stall, that's when they can get mean. 3) Screaming and making lots of noise can scare the snake.

So I didn't scream and make lots of noise. I stayed quiet and calm. But at that moment, as I was about to walk out the door and find somewhere in the bushes to answer the call of nature, a middle-aged lady and her husband walked up to the little building. They were chatting away fairly loudly, and the woman walked in the door and brightly said hello to me. (Actually, I think she said something about the dark night and the pretty stars, but I wasn't paying much attention.) So I just stopped her and very quietly said, "Ok, just so you know, there's a snake in that back stall." And I couldn't say anything else, because the Australian woman, who supposedly had lived here all her life, started screaming and making lots of noise. She hadn't even seen the thing.

The husband came in to have a look. The snake still wasn't moving much and wasn't making any signs that it was interested in striking. So the nice and calm man kept his flashlight on the scary stall and kept a running commentary for me, so I could use the toilet in the snake-free stall. I stayed calm, but it was the quickest trip to the loo I've ever made in my life. As I was leaving the building, I thanked the man and he told Margarie it was her turn to come on in and use the toilet. But she would have none of that.
It wasn't until I got back to the campsite that I really started shaking. Danny was very impressed. He said I'd handled my first poisonous snake situation very well. I hope I never have to show off that skill again!

I still can't figure out exactly what kind of snake it was. It was fairly slender and its stripes were very bright and clear and even. I haven't been able to find it on the internet, so if anyone has any insight, feel free to share. This Mangrove snake looks the most like the one I saw. but mine had a much smaller head, and it wasn't lunging at me with its fangs like this one. (very happy about that!)
Also, we weren't really near any mangrove trees, so I don't think it was probably this snake. but it was the same colouring and patterning.

Danny & Wayne & I sat up in the kitchen tent playing cards late into the night. We played a game called 500 -- which is apparently so popular here because it was played on the convict ships that started this great country. After a while, both my husband and I had to go for a little walk into the woods again. I was terribly relieved he was with me.

He walked into the ladies' toilet first this time, and looked around in both stalls. He shown his light all around the ground and pronounced the stall snake-free. I was about to walk in, but he told me to wait and he looked around the walls and the ceiling. Then my husband shuddered and froze. His face went white with a strange look of surprise and silent fear. He backed up and said, "Yeah, we'll just go outside."

I didn't get to see it. He said I wouldn't want to see it. Sometimes I wish I had just been able to get a peek, but then again, I've never seen that look on Danny's face before. On the wall of the stall, very close to the door, there was a Giant Bird-Eating Spider. As big as a large dinner plate, said Danny. These spiders actually eat birds. They hunt birds, they kill birds, and they can jump...probably about as far as I can.
We didn't go back to the toilets that night. We decided the open bush is safer!

And on a completely different topic -- we saw a very funny movie last night. It's a British comedy called Keeping Mum. If you like bizzare dark comedies and excellent acting, you should definately see it. We loved it.

Have a beautiful, creepy-crawly-free week. :)